Literary agent Nathan Bransford recently posted a “Writing Advice Database” on his excellent blog. Categories cover “Before You Start,” “The Writing Process,” “Revising,” “Genres and Classification,” and “Staying sane during the writing/publishing process.” Bransford calls it “an FAQ-style compendium of all the writing advice on the blog”–which is considerable. Check it out. And have a great weekend.
Anyone contemplating a PhD in Creative Writing may wish to consult Seth Abramson’s latest research product: a list of nearly 100 programs leading to just such a degree, within and outside the United States. Note that the program sites aren’t linked within Seth’s post, so that part of the investigating remains the reader’s job. (Thank goodness for Google!)
Hope everyone has a great weekend. See you back here on Monday.
UPDATE (12/09): Seth Abramson has discontinued his blog, and this post is no longer available. The next-best resources may be the Poets & Writers program database and AWP’s online directory to creative writing programs (in each case, you can limit the search to PhD programs).
The Renegade Writer presents The Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Paid.
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Missed the BEA/Writer’s Digest Conference? Check out the link-rich roundup.
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My alma mater‘s been on my mind a lot lately, and I was perusing its Web site when I found this new beta offering: Poetry@Harvard, which offers “a vital nexus of poetry-related courses, library collections, events, organizations, publications and pedagogy at Harvard University.”
Another recession casualty–I received the news via e-mail over the weekend:
Dear Friends of the Nieman Narrative Journalism Program,
I write to tell you of the Nieman Foundation’s decision to suspend the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism and the Nieman Seminar for Narrative Editors during the 2009-2010 academic year.
This will disappoint those who have participated in the conferences in the past and who anticipated attending another narrative gathering in the spring of 2010. This difficult step reflects the foundation’s need to make a major reduction in spending for the next fiscal year, beginning in July.
The annual conferences, which were attended by hundreds of journalists and writers, were part of our strategy to establish the Nieman Foundation as a leader in supporting the value of long-form storytelling.
Our commitment to narrative will continue through the narrative writing class offered to Nieman Fellows and our online Nieman Narrative Digest. The site is now updated bi-monthly and features notable narratives, interviews with authors, essays on craft, a narrative lexicon, useful links for writers and other resources.
I also encourage you to visit our Nieman Journalism Lab, Nieman Reports, and Nieman Watchdog Web sites for industry news, tips and inspiration.
Thank you for your wonderful support of our narrative endeavors.
Best regards,
Robert H. Giles
Nieman Foundation Curator
Here’s a big “thank you!” to Poets & Writers for its Small Press Database, which can help all of us practicing writers research “publisher interests, contact information, and submission guidelines.” (And don’t forget to support these presses with your purchases, too!)